The Best Ways to Maximize Your Weight Loss

This will be a three part series where I will be discussing several tips to help you reach your weight loss goals. In the first two articles, I will present tips and tricks to use surrounding your current diet program. In the last article I will focus on tips to help boost your current fitness/exercise program or just help you move more than you currently do.

Here are a few suggestions on how to make some small changes in your current diet program to maximize your weight loss or to break a plateau:

Diet Tips

Cut out salad dressing! But I can't just eat a bunch of vegetables with no dressing! you say. That is impossible. Ok, so I am not saying to put nothing on your salad, I am just saying that we should find alternatives. I used to be so bad with loading on the Ranch that I thought vegetables tasted like Ranch. Now I know vegetables have wonderful, unique flavors of their own. The point is to enhance and not cover up their flavor while saving calories.

One of my favorite dressings is lemon and hot sauce. I love this one because there are no calories added. This is especially good with a salad with meat on it. I would suggest using it on a Shrimp Louie! Another alternative would be just a splash of vinegar. No calories in this one either.

Ok, so some of you are not enjoying either of these choices. Then use one of the salad dressings they offer now that have a spray nozzle. There are some great flavor choices out there and they have a fraction of the calories of regular dressing. Most are about 1 calorie per spray! Wow!

Maybe you are asking why we should find alternatives to the traditional dressing choices. They are loaded with fat and calories. Here is an example of what choosing an alternative dressing can save. The average side salad at a fast food restaurant is 100-150 calories per salad. The dressings they serve usually consist of 2 servings at 200-300 calories per serving. You could save yourself up to 600 calories by opting to forgo the dressing or just make sure you get an extra hour or so on the elliptical machine. It's your choice.

Chew Gum! This is a great trick to use when cooking. I am a taster and somewhere in my subconscious there is this little area that thinks I need to taste what I am cooking every 5 min. I end up eating a whole meal worth of food before my meal..........yeah I don't skip the actual meal because I ate so much during the cooking process so this works really well for me. I save so many calories with this trick!

Don't forget to incorporate free foods. Free foods? What is a free food and why have I not heard about them before!? Ok, so most of you who have been on a diet before, which I am sure includes the majority of us, then you have probably heard of this in the past.

A free food is a food or drink that contains less than 25 calories per serving and 5 grams or less of carbohydrate per serving. There are lots of free foods. A few of these foods include bouillon, broth, consomm?, black coffee, unsweetened or with a sugar substitute, diet soda, sugar free drink mixes, mustard, lemon juice, sugar free gelatin, 1 tablespoon of whipped topping, 2 teaspoons BBQ sauce, 1 teaspoon fat-free cream cheese, 1 ? dill pickles and 1 piece sugar-free hard candy. To find a complete list of free foods just do a quick search on the internet.

My favorite free food dessert is having one of those flavored pre-made sugar free gelatins with a tablespoon of whip topping. Now don't go crazy with the free food but incorporate it when you need it. Everything in moderation.

-Eat soup! You can make some really great low calorie soups that you can keep on hand to use when you want something to eat but you really can't afford too many calories. When I was really concentrating on losing weight, I would make up a batch of soup on Sunday and eat ? to 1 cup servings throughout the week to fight off hunger or what I thought was hunger, you know like a bad day at work. Here is the recipe for the soup I used to make:

Celeste's Sunday Soup

Ingredients:

Non-Stick Cooking Spray

I cup Sliced Carrots

1/3 cup Diced Onion

3-4 Chopped or Minced Garlic Cloves

1 Cup Fresh Green Beans

? Cup Zucchini

? Cup Cut Yellow Squash

? Cup Diced Celery

2 Cups Cut Cabbage

5-6 Cups Low Sodium Broth (chicken, vegetable or beef)

1 ? Tablespoons Tomato Paste

? Teaspoon of Salt

? Teaspoon of Pepper

? Teaspoon Italian Seasoning

1-4 Dashes Hot Sauce (Use your Favorite)

Directions:
Spray a large pot with non-stick cooking spray and saut? the carrot, celery, onion and garlic. Add the garlic toward the end of this process as it really only needs a minute or two in the pan before you continue. Plus putting it over the other vegetables will help to make sure it doesn't burn.

Add the broth, cabbage, green beans, tomato paste and seasonings; bring to a boil

Lower the heat and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes or until the green beans are tender

Stir in the zucchini and yellow squash and heat for 5-6 minutes

Once cooled, store in the fridge for up to 6 days

Remember to customize the recipe to suit your tastes. I have a friend who modified it to only have green beans, celery, onions, broth and tomato paste because she is way picky. But the point is she modified it and made it work. She has been very successful with her weight loss. Now, remember that ? cup serving of this soup would be considered a free food.

Look for my second article where I will continue with more tips and tricks to use surrounding your current diet program!

Please remember that I am not a doctor. I am sharing tips and tricks that have worked for me and my friends. Make sure you talk to your doctor before making any modifications to your diet or exercise regimen.


By Celeste Jones